Jain Vegetarian Golden Triangle | Experience My India

Experience My India runs the circuit for vegetarian and Jain travellers, from Rs 60,000 per person (6-day, 4 star, twin sharing), with the dietary work done before you arrive rather than argued at every table. Two things, and the second one is the reason to come. One: 'pure veg' is not Jain, and most restaurants do not know the difference. Sattvic cooking drops onion and garlic. Jain practice also drops every root vegetable: potato, carrot, ginger, beetroot, radish, turnip. So a vegetarian restaurant will cheerfully serve a Jain guest a plate they cannot eat. One Jain writer describes the reality precisely: you ask twenty questions, the waiter looks confused, and the menu shrinks to three items. Two, and almost nobody tells Jain travellers this: some of Rajasthan's most famous dishes were invented for Jain festivals. Gatte ki sabzi and papad ki sabzi exist because the orthodox avoided green vegetables during observances, so cooks built entire dishes out of gram flour and papad instead. You are not a dietary problem being accommodated in Rajasthan. You are eating food that was created for your observance. That is a different holiday, and it is the one we sell.

Set out plainly, because most travel pages either skip it or get it wrong. The foundation is ahimsa, non-violence, and the reasoning is consistent all the way down. Meat, fish and eggs. Absolutely. Root and underground vegetables: potato, onion, garlic, carrot, beetroot, radish, turnip, ginger. Pulling the plant up kills it, and disturbs the organisms living around it. A bulb or tuber that can sprout is itself regarded as a living being. Honey, because collecting it harms bees. Mushrooms, fungi and yeast, which may host microorganisms. Fermented foods, including vinegar and some yogurts, for the same reason. This catches people out. Multi-seeded produce such as brinjal and figs, held to contain multiple lives, and the five udumbara fruits. Stale or day-old food. Food is prepared and eaten the same day, which rules out most buffets by definition. After sunset, eating is avoided, to spare the insects drawn to lamps. What is eaten: grains, pulses, fruit, and above-ground vegetables such as tomatoes, peas and beans. Dairy is traditionally permitted, making Jain cuisine lacto-vegetarian, though many modern Jains choose to avoid it on ethical grounds. And the necessary caveat: practice varies between individuals and between communities. Some observe more strictly than others, and observance tightens during festival periods. We will ask you what you do, rather than assume from a list. This page describes the tradition; you describe your own.

If you do not eat after sunset, an ordinary Golden Triangle is quietly hostile to you. Sightseeing runs to dusk, dinner is at eight, and hotel kitchens are built around it. So we invert the day. The main meal moves to the middle of it. In an Indian winter, sunset is around half past five, which means dinner is earlier than most operators think is possible and entirely normal for the kitchens that already do it. We tell the hotel before you arrive rather than at check-in, and we plan the driving so you are never stuck on a highway at dusk with nothing you can eat. Nobody who has not done this before will think of it. Ask any operator how they handle the sunset rule. The pause tells you whether they have.

India is the easiest country on earth for this, and Rajasthan is its easiest state. 'Jain' is a recognised instruction, not a special request you have to explain. Many restaurants serve a strict Jain version of their dishes, leaving out carrots, potatoes, onions and garlic. Some airlines serve a Jain meal on prior request. Many of India's vegetarian restaurants and sweet shops are Jain-run. You are not an edge case in this cuisine; you are close to its centre. Vegetarian food in India is regarded as appropriate for everyone, at every occasion, which is the opposite of the position vegetarians occupy in most countries. Rajasthani cuisine already went where you need it to go. It is desert cooking, built on gram flour, lentils, dried beans and ghee because fresh vegetables were unreliable, which our cooking class page explains. That logic and Jain observance arrive at almost the same table. Pushkar, if you add it, is a town without meat, eggs or alcohol at all. See our Ajmer and Pushkar page.

Two things worth knowing before you land. 'Vegetarian' in India excludes eggs. If you eat eggs, say so; the word for that here is different and the assumption will not go your way. This works in your favour more often than not. Your ordinary Western caution is unnecessary here. You are not hunting for the one veg option at the bottom of a menu. Most of the menu is yours, most of the country is on your side, and the food that vegetarians in Europe eat as a compromise is, here, simply the food.

Per person, twin sharing, with a 20 percent service margin and 5 percent GST already inside the number.

This is the same price as our standard circuit at the same tier. A Jain or vegetarian itinerary costs us coordination, not money, and we are not charging you for the coordination. If another operator quotes you more for a dietary requirement, ask them what the extra buys. Foreign nationals add about Rs 2,665 for the higher monument fees (Taj Rs 1,100 vs Rs 50, Agra Fort Rs 650 vs Rs 45, Fatehpur Sikri Rs 610 vs Rs 50, Amber Rs 550 vs Rs 100). OCI cardholders pay Indian rates with the physical card.